The FTC would receive 1.3 percent less funding under the White House’s FY 2015 budget proposal, released Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/1kVbb6b). The budget puts the FTC’s 2014 estimated budget at $298 million, slightly above the 2015 proposed $293 million outlay. But the 2015 proposal is still higher than the actual $279 million 2013 budget, according to the White House proposal. The budget also “proposes to increase the Hart-Scott-Rodino fees and index them for the percentage annual change in the gross national product,” and create a new merger fee category for mergers valued at over $1 billion. The fee changes would take effect in 2016, according to the proposal. The FTC did not comment on the proposed budget.

House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., supported HR-2126, the Energy Efficiency Improvement Act, on the House floor Tuesday. “Title III of this bill is legislation I authored with [Republican] Congressman Mike Rogers of Michigan to make the federal government’s IT and data centers more energy efficient,” Eshoo said. “By requiring federal agencies to utilize the best technologies and energy management strategies, our legislation will reduce the federal government’s energy use, save taxpayer dollars, and set the standard for the private sector.” The House was expected to vote on the bill late Tuesday, and her office expected the measure to pass. “The legislation also creates an Open Data Initiative to make federal data center energy usage available in a way that empowers further data center innovation, while protecting national security interests,” Eshoo said.

TVFreedom began focusing its advertising on a “clean” satellite reauthorization this week, as groups sent letters to Congress asking for that. The TVFreedom coalition, formed earlier this year, represents various broadcast interests, including NAB. From its inception it advertised in Capitol Hill publications, but it began explicitly calling for a clean reauthorization of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act in various Capitol Hill publications this week, days after NAB and TVFreedom announced opposition to a rumored STELA draft being developed in the House Communications Subcommittee. Broadcasters are unhappy with the proposals removing broadcast channels from the basic tier, in particular, as well as others that they say amount to a gift to the cable industry. “Tell Congress: We need a clean STELA reauthorization,” said an ad on The Hill’s website. In a Politico newsletter, a TVFreedom ad said, “We need a clean STELA reauthorization, not another vehicle to hike consumers’ cable bills. Pay-TV is trying to gouge consumers by taking the channels they watch most out of their basic package. They are ripping people off to boost record profits.” A spokesman for TVFreedom confirmed the explicit mention of STELA in the advertising is a new move as of this week, saying STELA is an “increased priority for us” after last week’s revelations. STELA is to expire at the end of the year. Other lobbyists have questioned broadcasters’ interpretation and have suggested the rumored STELA draft is actually quite narrow in scope and what should have been expected. The Americans for Prosperity, the American Conservative Union and TVFreedom member the Hispanic Institute sent letters to the subcommittee this week backing what they would consider clean STELA reauthorization. “We urge you to oppose attaching ancillary provisions outside of the original scope and intent of this legislation,” said the letter from the Americans for Prosperity. “Our concern is that changing the way that broadcasters negotiate with cable and satellite television providers would stray from the original intention of the law, as well as favor one private party at the expense of another.” STELA is hardly the “proper legislative vehicle to carry any kind of substantial changes,” the American Conservative Union said in its letter, suggesting instead that the House Republican leaders address such proposals as part of a broader communications law overhaul. The Hispanic Institute is “disappointed to see the interests and profits of pay-TV providers coming before the Hispanic consumer,” it said in its letter to Congress.

Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian will brief the Congressional Privacy Caucus at 10 a.m. Wednesday in 2218 Rayburn, it said in a news release. It said her remarks will focus on designing products to promote digital privacy. Reps. Joe Barton, R-Tex., and Diana DeGette, D-Colo., co-chair the caucus, which discussed data security and data breach notifications at its last briefing with FTC Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen, public interest representatives and retail industry officials.

Public Knowledge said it supports the Transparency in Assertion of Patents Act (S-2049). The bill, introduced last week by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., would extend the FTC’s authority to regulate patent assertion entities’ use of pre-litigation demand letters. Public Knowledge advocated for Senate Commerce Committee action on demand letters at a November hearing, and S-2049 “implements many of the reforms that we advocated in our testimony at the hearing,” said Charles Duan, Public Knowledge’s director-Patent Reform Project, in a statement Friday. The Senate Commerce Committee is to vote on S-2049 during an executive session Wednesday.

Watch for privacy packages put together by House Republican leadership, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said on an episode of C-SPAN’s The Communicators set to air Saturday. He named House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and broadly, committee chairmen, including Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., as those interested in putting legislation together. The lawmakers sense a growing consumer demand for privacy legislation, “and they're beginning to put packages together that you'll hopefully see on the floor sometime this summer,” said Barton, founder and co-chair of the Congressional Privacy Caucus and a former House Commerce Committee chairman. He also slammed net neutrality rules that the FCC hopes to reinstate. “Obviously Netflix should pay more than someone who uses the Internet once a month,” Barton said. “I'm being very simplistic, but that’s the genesis.” Companies have spent billions to “set up their systems” and “should be allowed to charge based on volume,” he said. Barton expressed support for House Republicans’ goals of updating the Communications Act, citing recent conversation with Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., about more “oversight hearings and fact-finding hearings” to that end. He hopes there will be a bill in the next Congress. He defended his efforts backing legal online poker and touted poker as a game of skill, distinguishing it from other gambling. Of a recent vote on cellphone unlocking, Barton accused of confusion certain members who spoke in opposition to a bill, which passed the House earlier this week. Barton is “hopeful” of getting his Do Not Track Kids Act advancing in this Congress, he said, mentioning “all kinds of privacy issues that have made the front pages.” If the Fourth Amendment were ratified today, it “would include a specific right to privacy,” he predicted. He called the lobbying of tech companies “modest” but suggested lobbying forces have more power if they have a presence in a Congress member’s home district or state. He cited AT&T, based in Dallas and near his own district, as an example. He would be likelier to speak to AT&T workers if he knew they lived in his district and commuted there, he said. “That is much more effective,” he said of those home district connections. “On any big issue, the Washington side of it tends to balance out,” given so many trade associations and lobbyists around the Capitol, he said.

Google, Cisco and Netflix were among 24 companies that told Senate Judiciary Committee leaders that they want the committee to strike a provision in the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720) that would require the Patent and Trademark Office to stop using the broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI) patent evaluation standard and instead use the federal courts’ claim construction standard. Eliminating the BRI standard “would undermine the goal of producing high quality patents” and “would reverse much of the important progress that has been made under the America Invents Act (AIA) to reduce frivolous patent litigation,” the companies said in a letter to Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. AIA created PTO’s inter partes review and post-grant review processes to provide a non-litigation method of challenging the validity of patents -- processes that have become popular remedies, the companies said. Eliminating BRI will “greatly weaken” both processes and “could produce inconsistent results where a single patent is under evaluation before the PTO in multiple proceedings,” the companies said. Industry observers see S-1720 as the marquee Senate bill addressing so-called abusive patent litigation, although other bills on the issue are under consideration in the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees.

The Senate Commerce Committee fast-tracked consideration of the Transparency in Assertion of Patents Act (S-2049), saying Thursday that the committee plans to vote on the bill during its executive session Wednesday. S-2049 is one of eight bills on the docket for the session. The legislation, which Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., introduced Thursday, would expand the FTC’s authority to regulate patent assertion entities’ use of pre-litigation demand letters against potential lawsuit defendants. Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., is a co-sponsor of the bill (CD Feb 28 p12). The executive session begins at 2:30 p.m. in 253 Russell.

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., asked FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to question Comcast’s past compliance behavior in reviewing any Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal, he said in a letter Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/1gHxA4k), citing Comcast’s previous acquisition of NBCUniversal. “To the extent that Comcast has a history of breaching its legal obligations to consumers, such history should be taken into account when evaluating Comcast’s proposal for future market expansion,” Franken wrote. Wheeler’s inquiries should include net neutrality, localism, affordable stand-alone broadband, data caps and network neighborhoods, Franken recommended. Franken has emphasized the deal in his Senate campaign, and it has also become a campaign issue for Ro Khanna, a Democrat running for a House seat in California and widely hailed by the tech industry. The deal would cause “unprecedented concentration in the cable TV industry,” Khanna wrote in a letter (http://bit.ly/MBMJuv) to Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., Khanna’s incumbent competitor. “I believe it is imperative for Members of Congress to speak out against this merger because the interests of consumers are being overwhelmed by Comcast’s power on Capitol Hill.” Lawmakers in the House and Senate Judiciary committees have announced intentions to hold hearings on the deal. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, expects the House Commerce Committee to hold a hearing on the deal, scrutinizing local issues where there may be market dominance problems. “We would tend to be receptive,” Barton said of how Congress will receive the deal, speaking on an episode of C-SPAN’s The Communicators that was set to be telecast Saturday. (See separate report in this issue.) Asked about Franken’s letter, Comcast defended its efforts. “Comcast is proud of our track-record on complying with the conditions from our past transactions including NBCUniversal,” a spokeswoman said in a statement. “We've gone above and beyond in compliance with most conditions, including our low-income broadband program, the amount of local news programming and investment in local stations, the amount of on-demand programming, especially children’s programming, and many more areas.” Executive Vice President David Cohen has also argued in favor of the company in blog posts on compliance conditions, such as a post a year ago (http://bit.ly/1hJyWMO).

Eight House members signed on Thursday as co-sponsors to the Local Radio Freedom Act (H. Con. Res. 16), which opposes new performance royalties, according to Congress.gov (http://1.usa.gov/1mKPXwI). Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, also added his name Thursday as a co-sponsor to the Senate’s concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 6), it said (http://1.usa.gov/1cfZEyO). Reps. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa; Corrine Brown, D-Fla.; Larry Bucshon, R-Ind.; Andre Carson, D-Ind.; John Carter R-Texas; Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz.; Nick Rahall, D-W.Va.; and Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., are the most recent House co-sponsors of the bill, it said. A total of 201 House members and 13 senators support the bill, NAB said in a press release Friday (http://bit.ly/1cfWwTz).